


Memento Mori

by the_random_writer



Series: Separated Twins [14]
Category: Bourne (Movies), RED (Movies), The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
Genre: Ancestors, Brothers, Childhood Memories, Crossover, Family Bonding, Family History, Family Secrets, Gen, Guns, Memories, Nazis, Plans For The Future, Secrets, Separated Twins, Sisters, Switzerland, Twins, Vacation, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-14 01:47:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12997167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_random_writer/pseuds/the_random_writer
Summary: A crossover where William Cooper from 'RED' and Kirill from 'The Bourne Supremacy' are identical twins.Born in Berlin to an American mother and a Russian father, the twins were separated at the age of ten by their parents' divorce. William went to the United States with their mother, while Kirill went to the Soviet Union with their father.William, Kirill, Michelle and Catherine go through Kirill's box of belongings. Takes place immediately after 'The Spoils of War'.





	Memento Mori

**Hotel St. Hubertus, Geneva, Switzerland, 2 August 2011**

Michelle paused as footsteps she could barely hear padded towards her from the hall.

She felt no alarm. Kate was sprawled on the other couch, flicking through the copy of _Cosmopolitan_ she'd purchased at Dulles, and the door to the suite was bolted and locked, so she knew it could only be one of the boys. She turned to check, and smiled as she saw it was Kirill, returning from his avuncular duties after an absence of almost an hour.

"Either of them give you any trouble?" she asked, referring to her (hopefully sleeping) daughter and son.

Kirill shook his head. "Tatiana made a vague threat about wanting a second story, but she barely made it to the end of the first one." He gestured for Kate to make room on her couch, waited for her to pull in her legs and lowered himself into the vacant seat. "They were both fast asleep by the time I got to the door. We shouldn't hear a sound from them until the morning."

Kate re-extended her legs to lay them across Kirill's lap. "Given what they got up to today, I'm surprised they didn't fall asleep right into their bowls of soup," she said, throwing her magazine onto the table.

"They had a good time?" Kirill asked.

Michelle grinned. "You could say that, yes. Tatiana took so many turns on one of the slides, we thought she was going to wear it out."

"Which wouldn't have been a massive problem, if she hadn't insisted on shrieking at the top of her lungs every time she popped out the end," Kate added. "I swear, at one point, I thought the asshole lifeguard guy was gonna shout at her to shut the hell up."

Ever the loving and loyal uncle, Kirill came to his niece's defense. "The man should not be working somewhere that mostly caters to children if he cannot handle the noise those children make when they play."

William wandered into the room, done with his shower, pulling a t-shirt into place. "You're forgetting we're in Switzerland, _brat_. Making a lot of noise is literally against the law."

"Even when you're a six-year-old girl?" Kate asked, brows raised in slight disbelief.

" _Especially_ when you're a six-year-old girl."

"I think having a lot of fun is against the law in this country as well," Kirill tartly said. "Unless you are somehow making a lot of money at the same time."

Michelle sighed and shook her head. That was Kirill's third complaint about Switzerland and the Swiss in almost as many hours. "You _really_ don't like these people, do you?" she said.

Kirill wagged a finger at her. "You have only been here for a couple of days, Mishenka. Think about that question again when we are on our way back to the airport, see how much you sympathize with my viewpoint, then."

William joined her on the couch, gave her knee an affectionate pat, then pulled up his sock-covered feet to rest them on the coffee table.

Michelle looked from one twin to the other. "Speaking of people having fun, I assume the two of you managed to do whatever it was you had to put your fancy suits and shoes on to do?"

She caught the look that passed between them—a look that in the past eighteen months, she'd come to know distressingly well. Something naughty was going on—something the Cooper and Orlov boys were in up to their delicate ears.

In the space of a second, her curious mood morphed into a thunderous glare. "Do Kate and I even _want_ to know what the two of you were doing? Or should we follow the Swiss example, and simply look the other way?"

"Nothing naughty was going on," Kirill indignantly said, adding telepathy to his list of skills.

That wasn't good enough for Kate. "What about illegal?" she asked.

Kirill scrunched his face. "How could something be illegal but somehow _not_ be naughty as well?"

"Usually, it couldn't," Kate said, "but I've learned the hard way that you have a talent for stretching the meaning of words."

"She's got you there, _brat_ ," William murmured, declining to offer fraternal support.

"Then, allow me to be more precise," was Kirill's slightly huffy response. "We were not doing anything naughty _or_ illegal _or_ that will get us fired, deported or thrown in jail. Is that good enough for you?"

"No, because you still haven't told us what the hell you were doing," Kate pointed out.

Kirill's expression turned to stone. "Nothing important."

Michelle was a mother of two and a lawyer, so she sure as hell wasn't falling for that. "If it wasn't important, why don't you just tell us?" she asked. She folded her arms across her chest. "And if it wasn't important, why did the two of you make such a fuss about having to go on your own?"

Kirill gave her a constipated look and turned to his older brother for help.

This time, William stepped in. "We were closing down Kirill's Swiss bank account," he revealed.

Kirill muttered something vulgar-sounding in Russian and shot William what Michelle could only describe as a 'really?' glare.

Kate was just as unimpressed. "You never told me you had a bank account in Geneva," she said to Kirill, in a tone that made it clear there were going to be discussions on the matter later.

"It was more of a safety deposit box than an actual bank account," Kirill explained.

"So you don't have a few million Swiss francs or Euros squirreled away for a rainy day?"

"Sadly, no," Kirill said. "I'm afraid we will both have to work for a living for a few years yet."

It occurred to Michelle that Kirill's statement wasn't _entirely_ true, since Kate, like her, had access to a substantial amount of money courtesy of their family trust. But maybe Kirill wasn't the only half of the couple who knew how to stretch the meaning of words.

Kate's disappointment showed on her face. "I'm guessing that means the safety deposit box wasn't packed full of Franklins, either."

She wasn't watching him when it happened, but Michelle could have _sworn_ she heard William snort.

Kirill simply shook his head.

"What _was_ it full of, then?" Michelle asked.

"Nothing of any particular value," Kirill said.

Michelle gave her husband's brother another glare. "Cut the crap, Kirill. We're not the government. Tell us what was in the box."

It was William who answered. "Guns, gold, stolen art, fake passports and uncut diamonds," he breezily volunteered.

"Uh huh," Kate said. "Next, you'll be telling us you and Kir are actually top-level spies, and you were visiting a secret CIA base to pick up a new set of exploding pens."

William grinned. "I've always preferred the pen that's a gun to the pen that's a mini-grenade. Classier, more sophisticated."

"And you're a _totally_ classy guy."

"Damn straight," said the man wearing a faded Captain America tee.

"So, what was it full of?" Michelle repeated, knowing damn well what the brothers were doing. They probably weren't top-level spies, but they were both masters of obfuscation and misdirection—almost as bad (or good) as Tatiana. No prizes for guessing where her daughter had inherited her talents in that area from…

Kirill tried the innocent card. "What was what full of?" he asked.

"The safety deposit box," Michelle said. He had five seconds to start talking, then, brother-in-law or not, she was going to beat him to death with a pointy stick. "What was in it?"

Kirill narrowed his eyes, obviously planning to resist, then sighed and relaxed, giving in. "I was using it to store some family mementos."

Michelle sat up, interest piqued. "When you say family mementos, you mean from the _Orlov_ side?"

"Yes."

"So, items from Russia?"

"And the Soviet Union, yes."

But something about this didn't add up—a fact her younger sister quickly noticed as well. "How the _hell_ did some family mementos from Russia end up in a safety deposit box in Geneva?" Kate asked.

Kirill sighed again. " _That_ is a very long story."

Oh, but of _course_ it was. And given the slightly guarded look on his face, one he was somewhat reluctant to tell.

Michelle heaved a sigh of her own. "Why do I get the feeling that's the understatement of the year?" she said. A ripple of shock ran up her spine. "Wait a minute, if you went there today to _close_ the account, does that mean you brought whatever you were storing in it back to the hotel suite with you?" She craned her neck to scan the room, looking for a bag or a box.

The answer came from Kate, who said, "Is that what that battered, old trunk under the dresser in our bedroom is? The one that looks like it fell out of a Harry Potter movie?"

"Yes, it is."

"When were you going to tell us about it?" Michelle asked. She posed the question to both brothers, since William was just as involved as his twin.

Kirill responded again. "We weren't sure. At some point during the trip. After dinner one night, once the children had gone to bed, when the mood and the moment seemed right."

"I'm not the best judge of timing in the world, but I think that mood and moment might have arrived," William drily observed.

"Were you just gonna tell us what the trunk was, or were you gonna open it up to let us look at whatever's inside?" was Kate's next question.

Kirill gestured at his brother. "I have already seen everything the trunk contains, so that is for Viko to decide. What do you want to do?" he asked his twin. "Would you rather go through the contents tonight, or wait until we are back in the States?"

William was silent for a few moments, then took a deep breath and nodded brusquely. "Let's go through the contents tonight."

"I thought you wanted to wait until we were home?" Kirill said. "Look through it over the Labor Day weekend?"

"I changed my mind. I don't think my nerves can wait until we're back in the States, and even if they could, we'd still be doing it with the four of us present. Plus, it just occurred to me that if we go through it here, we'll have time to deal with any difficult or troubling items."

"I already told you there is nothing illegal or dangerous in it," Kirill said.

William snorted. "Yeah, except like Kate said, your idea of what 'illegal' or 'dangerous' means sometimes leaves a lot to be desired."

Michelle could see the brothers were nervous (which explained their initial refusal to open up), but given what they were talking about, that was hardly a huge surprise. "Kirill, why don't you go fetch the trunk, and I'll grab us a nice bottle of wine?" she said. Alcohol would go a long way to smooth out any tension the two men were feeling.

Kirill nodded and gestured for Kate to reclaim her legs. "I will fetch the trunk, but don't worry about the bottle of wine. I have that covered as well."

As Kirill vanished into his and Kate's master suite, William leaned over and cryptically said, "You're gonna cry when you see what he's got."

Her brother-in-law soon reappeared carrying an old leather trunk, with a bottle of wine tucked under his arm. From where she was sitting, nothing about what Kirill was holding seemed a reason to burst into tears. "Did you boys stop in a liquor store on the way back?" she asked.

Kirill didn't answer her question, but placed the trunk on the coffee table and handed her the bottle of wine. "It will need some time to breathe, so if you open it now, it should be ready by the time we are done."

She turned the bottle to look at the label, and almost dropped it in disbelief. "Oh my God, Kirill, this is a bottle of Chateau Margaux. Do you have _any_ idea how much this stuff costs?"

"No, but I assume from your tone that the answer is an arm and a leg."

"This stuff is so high-end, even the crappy vintages sell for a couple of hundred bucks." She peered at the label again. "How good was 1982?"

"Very good, according to the wine guide I read. One of the best from the last fifty years."

The realization of what she was holding made her heart quietly pound. "Then this is a thousand dollar bottle of wine," she murmured, turning to look at her spouse, whose face was sporting a shit-eating grin.

"It is, yes."

"And we're going to _drink_ it?"

"What else would we do with it?" Kirill asked.

"People usually keep bottles as good as this as part of their investment plan."

"Would you not prefer to drink it instead?"

"Well, of course I would, but..."

Kirill held up a hand. "No buts. If there is one lesson I have learned since I moved to the United States, it is that you should never pass up a good opportunity when it arises, because you never know if and when it may come again. We are going to drink this, so open the bottle and leave it on the counter to air."

"Oh, no," Michelle objected, vigorously shaking her head. "I'm not taking the cork out of _this_. If I spill even a drop of it, I'll never be able to live with the guilt." She set the bottle back down on the table.

Kate rolled her eyes. "Jesus, Mike, it's just a bottle of wine. Give the damn thing to me, I'll open it for you." Before anyone could protest, she grabbed the bottle around the neck, pushed up from the couch and padded across to the bar nook at the side of the room. There was a clanging sound and a twist of the hand, she grunted slightly, then something went 'pop'.

Michelle groaned and buried her face in her hands. "I can't believe we just opened a bottle of eighty-two Margaux," she whimpered. "What on earth would our parents think?"

"It's just wine, honey," William said, patting her on the thigh again. "Don't worry about it."

Kate held the bottle up to the light, swirled it around, then sniffed at the neck. She shrugged slightly. "Looks like red wine, smells like red wine, pretty sure it's gonna taste like red wine as well." She set the bottle down on the counter and made her way back to her seat.

As she sat, Kate said to Kirill, "No offense, babe, but that's gotta be the most battered suitcase I've ever seen. Poor thing looks like it's been through a war."

"That is because it actually has," Kirill explained.

William leaned forward to run a hand along the scarred and battered lid. "It's seen some abuse, but there's real craftmanship in this. Wherever it came from, it wasn't a dollar store type of shop."

"This belonged to our paternal grandmother, Maria Ivanovna Orlova," Kirill said. He turned the trunk to show them the metal plate on the front, engraved with three Cyrillic letters.

"I'm gonna take a wild guess those are your grandmother's initials in Russian," Kate said.

William shook his head. "That last character is the Cyrillic version of 'D', not 'O'."

"That is because our grandmother owned this trunk before she was married, when she was still Maria Ivanovna Demidova."

Michelle frowned, crunching some numbers in her head. "If Maria was the same generation as our grandparents, this trunk is more than seventy years old."

"Seventy-three, to be precise. Our grandmother's father was a leather goods worker by trade. She told me he made this for her in 1938, as her eighteenth birthday present."

"William's right," Kate acknowledged. "It's pretty battered, but well-made to have lasted this long."

Michelle looked to Kirill again. "You said the trunk had been through a war. If it was made in 1938, I assume you meant World War Two?"

"I did, yes."

"Whereabouts in the Soviet Union was your grandmother from?" she asked, just as eager as her husband to see what Kirill had to share.

"When she was born in 1920, her native city was called Tsaritsyn. Five years later, the government gave it a different name."

"Stalingrad," William explained.

"Jesus, even I've heard of that place," Kate said. "There was a big battle there in World War Two, right?"

William nodded. "One of the longest and bloodiest in human history. Made the Normandy landings look like a minor skirmish in comparison."

"I'm guessing the Russians won?"

"Soviets, not Russians, and yes, they did, but at enormous cost," Kirill said. "By the time it was over, more than a million people had been wounded or killed, and most of the city had been destroyed."

"And your grandmother lived through it?" asked Michelle.

"Lived through it, fought in it, earned a medal for her efforts."

"She _fought_ in it?"

"As a civilian sniper, yes."

Kate smirked. "Must be where you numbskulls get your fondness for bullets and guns."

Kirill looked to William, who shrugged and said, "We sure as hell don't get it from the Cooper side. Oma Johanna hated guns, and for all that Grandpa Michael was a Navy man, he never had firearms in the house that I remember. If he did, he kept them locked away and got rid of them before he died."

"Did your grandmother stay in Stalingrad after the battle was done?" Michelle asked.

"There was nothing for her to stay in the city for, so she moved to Moscow to be with our grandfather."

"Was he from Stalingrad as well?"

"He was from Moscow, but he had been conscripted into the Army, so he was stationed there with the Sixty-Second as part of the defense of the city. He was badly wounded towards the end of the battle, and sent back to Moscow to recover. He and Maria were allowed to marry before he left, so she was able to travel to Moscow with him. When he was recalled to duty in the autumn of 1943, she stayed in Moscow with his father. She didn't see him again until the autumn of 1945."

"That can't have been easy," Kate observed.

"War has never been easy, Katenka. Especially for the people of the Soviet states."

"So that's the history of the trunk itself," William declared, sounding slightly nervous but also eager to move things along. "How about we crack it open and take a look at whatever's inside?"

Kirill spun the trunk back around, then one at a time, unfastened the ancient, creaking straps. He lifted the lid, releasing an all-too-familiar smell—the musty, dusty scent of the past.

Kirill looked in the trunk and swore.

Beside her, William tensed. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"There is something in here I had forgotten about, that might cause a minor amount of concern," Kirill confessed, looking slightly embarrassed. Before anyone could ask what he meant, he reached in to pull out a gun.

Michelle groaned, Kate pulled back in disgust.

"You just told us the trunk had nothing illegal or dangerous in it," William complained, reaching out to ask for the gun.

Kirill handed the weapon over. "I forgot I had it. And it's not like you have never seen or used one before, so don't give me that judgmental stare."

"What the hell is it with you boys and guns?" Michelle wearily wondered out loud. Bad enough they had a shed full of handguns and hunting rifles at home, now they were popping up on vacation as well?

As she watched, her husband checked the safety was on, then turned the gun over in his hand, no doubt assessing its balance and weight.

"You want to keep it?" William suggested, offering the weapon back to his twin.

Kirill shook his head. "It is a nice gun, but I can buy one just like it anywhere in the States."

"You're not emotionally attached to it, then?" Kate asked. "It wasn't like, the first gun you every owned?"

Kirill paused for a moment, then said, "No."

Michelle was about to ask him why he'd held on to the weapon it if it had no special value, then decided on second thoughts, that question was better left unaired.

William carefully placed the firearm on the small table next to the couch. "I'll take it to Tom before we leave. He should be able to dispose of it for us."

"Who's Tom?" Kate asked.

"A guy I know over at the US consulate. We served together in the marines."

"He won't think it's weird, you turning up with a random gun?"

William grinned. "No, he won't think it's weird. He's served in the Corps, and he works for the State Department. He's probably handled requests much worse than getting rid of a gun."

Kirill looked pensive for a moment, then said, "I think I am going to bring stuff out a chunk at a time, in chronological order. Start with the oldest things, finish with the most recent items."

"Leaving the best 'til last, huh?"

"Something like that, yes."

Slowly and surely, Kirill rummaged through the container's contents, picking out a handful of items which he then gathered into his lap. He laid one of the items on the table facing towards her and Will—a creased, faded, black and white photo of a slender, beautiful, dark-haired woman wearing a flowing, full-length dress. She was standing between two stern, handsome, uniformed men, but smiling and holding a bouquet of flowers. It was very obviously a wedding photo.

"Would you look at the embroidery detail on that dress," Michelle murmured, turning the photo so her sister could see it.

Kate snorted. "Never mind the embroidery detail, what about the diamond tiara?" She turned to her other half. "I don't suppose the tiara's one of the items tucked away in that trunk?"

"Unfortunately, no."

"Pity. I've always wanted to own a tiara."

Michelle couldn't help but laugh. Only her crazy, baby sister could have such a ridiculous goal. "When in God's name would you ever wear it?"

"That's not the point."

"Uh huh."

Kate wagged a finger at William. "Your husband owns more expensive pairs of shoes than the rest of us put together. Don't take that disapproving tone with me."

"I like my shoes," William protested.

"Yeah, and I'm sure if I had one, I'd like my diamond tiara as well!"

Michelle noticed Kirill perk up, which meant he was probably prepping a barb of his own, no doubt about his older brother's sartorial habits. "So who are these people?" she asked, nipping the brewing fight in the bud. "And when was the photo taken?"

Kirill turned the photo over, revealing a block of handwritten text. "The man on the left is our great-grandfather, Mikhail Sergeievich Orlov. The woman is our great-grandmother, Sophia Anishina. I cannot remember her patronymic." He furrowed his brows, trying to interpret the cursive Cyrillic scrawl. "Constantinovna, that was it. Sophia Constantinovna Anishina. This photo was taken on her and Mikhail's wedding day in June 1914."

"Just before the start of the War," William noted, gesturing for Kate to hand him the photo. He tapped a finger on one of the men. "Who's the guy on the other side, with the medals and the Poirot moustache?"

"He looks like one of the waiters to me," Kate tartly said.

Kirill grinned. "That is Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia. He was a grandson of Tsar Alexander the Second."

" _Grand Duke_ Kirill?" William repeated. "Jesus, you weren't named for him, were you?"

"I don't think so, no. It is far more likely I was named Kirill because we were born on May twenty-fourth, which is the feast day of Saint Cyril the Philosopher."

William smirked. "Think it would have made more sense to name you after moustache man. You're not much of a philosopher that I've seen."

"I have my deep-thinking moments."

"Really? When?"

"So why the hell was a Russian Grand Duke who looks like a snobby waiter at your great-grandparents' wedding?" Kate asked.

"Because our great-grandfather was an officer in the Imperial Russian Navy, and had served under the Grand Duke on a warship two years before."

Michelle looked at the photo again, examining the rows of medals proudly displayed on the two men's chests. "Mikhail must have been from a good family, to have a Russian royal at his wedding."

"His parents were upper middle-class and well-to-do instead of rich. Sophia was another matter."

"Was she an aristocrat?"

"No, but she _was_ the only child of one of St. Petersburg's wealthiest bankers. She was not rich so much as absolutely rolling in it."

Kate grinned. "Your great-granddaddy did really good."

"Good enough for a Russian Grand Duke to take an interest in him and his career."

"What happened to them?" William asked. "I guess if they went on to have kids, they must have survived the War and both of the Revolutions?"

"Mikhail made it through the War in one piece, and had the sense to pledge his allegiance to the Provisional Government after the February Revolution, and again to the Bolsheviks after October. So yes, they survived, but they lost everything, including the beautiful diamond tiara."

Michelle asked, "How many kids did they have?" thinking of Andrew and Tatiana, sleeping in the bedroom next door.

Kirill handed her an oval, gold locket engraved with an Orthodox cross. "This locket is the only item from her jewellery collection Sophia was able to keep."

Using a nail, Michelle carefully prised the locket open. Each half held an ancient, fuzzy, black and white photo—one of a girl of six or seven, one of a much younger boy.

Kirill provided the names. "The girl is their daughter, Natalia Mikhailovna, who was born in 1915. The little boy is our grandfather, Boris Mikhailovich, who was born in 1920."

William peered at the photos over her shoulder. "We know Boris survived, obviously, but what about the rest of the family?"

"Sophia died in 1923. Mikhail and Boris moved to Moscow in 1935, but Natalia did not go with them. She was either dead, or chose to stay in St. Petersburg."

"She'd have been almost twenty by then," Kate pointed out. "Maybe she stayed behind because she was married."

Kirill shrugged. "Perhaps."

"You never wanted to find out?" Michelle asked.

"Not really, no. Nobody I knew in Moscow knew anything about her, except her name and year of birth. Even if she did survive to live out her life in St. Petersburg, she will be long dead. There was nothing for me to find out."

Michelle handed the locket to William, who examined it for a couple of moments, then handed it over to Kate in turn.

"What other stuff of theirs do you have?" her husband asked.

"Very little, unfortunately, which is hardly surprising, given what their country went through and the length of time that has passed."

Another object was placed on the table—something small and rectangular wrapped in a piece of simple, white cloth. Kirill peeled the cloth away, revealing a tattered, gilt-edged, leather-bound book. "This is Sophia's Orthodox bible."

Kate reached to pick it up, but Kirill pushed her hand away. "It was printed in 1890, and the pages are rather fragile, so I would advise against looking through it."

The bible stayed where it was. "Not like I could read it anyway, if it's written in Russian."

William traced an index finger over the letters on the front. "I have Oma Johanna's Hebrew Bible in the house. This would make a good companion."

Kate scrunched her nose. "I thought the Coopers were Catholics?"

"Technically, we are. But it's complicated."

"Why the hell is that always the answer whenever your family's involved?"

"We can't all be as simple and easy as you McNallys."

"Hey, who the hell are you calling easy?" Kate protested.

Michelle punched her husband on the arm. "And who the hell are you calling simple?"

Grinning, Kirill turned back to the trunk to gather another set of belongings. This time, the haul was another black and white photo, an ornate buckle sized for a man, a small, carved wooden horse, a battered, leather spectacles case and a trio of ancient silver spoons.

William cocked a brow. "What the _hell_ is all that?"

"That is what was left of our grandmother's home on the outskirts of Stalingrad after it was destroyed by a bomb," Kirill explained. He pushed the photo across the table. "This is a photo of the Demidov family, taken in 1938. The parents are Ivan Pavlovich and Elena Alexeievna. The older girl is our grandmother, Maria. The younger daughter was called Galina."

"What happened to them?" Michelle asked, suspecting the answer wouldn't be good.

Kirill confirmed her fears. "Ivan and Elena were killed by the bomb that destroyed their home. Galina died of influenza during the harsh winter that followed."

"So your grandmother lost everyone."

"And everything," Kirill added. "She found these items in the rubble of the house, along with some clothes and this trunk. They were all worthless, but they had all belonged to her family, so naturally she wanted to keep them. Her father had been making a belt for the buckle."

"It must have been very hard for her to talk about them," Kate said.

"The opposite, actually. She loved to tell stories about them, especially Galina. I think sharing the memories was her way of keeping them alive, reminding the world that they actually existed."

William smiled slightly. "I remember after mom's funeral, Oma Johanna told me a person doesn't really die until there's nobody left who remembers meeting them in the flesh, so I can understand that."

Michelle peered at the family photo, trying to make out features and faces. "Can't say I see any family resemblance."

Her husband shook his head. "That's because we get our looks from the Cooper side. We've got grandpa Michael's eyebrows and ears."

Kate picked up the wooden horse. "Did your great-grandfather make this as well?" she asked.

"No, he did not. It was a tenth birthday present to Galina, from one of her Demidov relations."

To her sister, Kate said, "Tania would go nuts for this."

"Then Tania should have it," Kirill replied.

Michelle shook her head. "It belongs to you, Kirill. You don't have to give it up just because you think your niece would like it."

"These items belong to Viko just as much as they do to me. And I think our babushka would approve of us giving it to a little girl." Kirill paused to appraise the pile. "Why don't we put the items we have gone through aside, to make room for what is coming next?"

Between them, Michelle and William collected all of the stuff they'd looked at so far and moved it to another table.

Kirill turned to the trunk again. "Now we look at our grandparents' things."

He laid three photos on the table, briefly describing them as he went. "This is our babushka Maria on sniper duty in Stalingrad in 1942. This is Maria and Boris on their wedding day in Moscow in 1945. And this is Maria with her children on holiday in Yalta in 1952."

Michelle examined the wedding photo. This time, there was no row of shiny medals, no flowing, embroidered gown and no stunning diamond tiara—just an ordinary young woman and man wearing their nicest dress and suit. "I thought you said Maria and Boris got married in Stalingrad in forty-three?"

"They did, but there was some confusion as to whether the ceremony had been performed correctly, so they got married again once Boris was home from the war, just to be sure."

William took the photo from her to read the handwritten notes on the back. "This is dated November 1945."

"Yes."

"I thought dad was born in April 1946?"

"He was," Kirill confirmed.

"So our grandmother must have been pregnant on her wedding day."

"Yes."

Michelle pretended to disapprove. "Scandalous behaviour," she said. "Imagine being pregnant on your wedding day."

Kate snickered. "Think of it as an Orlov tradition."

Michelle's mood turned sombre again as she examined the final image. "If this is Maria with her children, the little boy must be your dad."

Kirill sighed. "Alexander Borisovich, yes."

"So the girl in her arms is Tatiana."

Kate looked surprised. "Is that where Tania's name comes from?"

William nodded. "I never knew much about dad's family, but I knew he had a younger sister who died."

"What did she die of?"

"Polio," Kirill explained. "When she was two years old, a few months after this photo was taken."

"That's so sad," Kate murmured. "Especially after what happened with her parents and sister."

"Part of the reason why we decided to use the name," Michelle explained. "We named Andrew after our dad as a way to make peace with him and mom over the whole elopement thing, so we wanted our second child to have a name from Will's side of the tree. When we found out we were having a girl, it seemed like an obvious choice. When she was born on June tenth, it sealed the deal."

Kate frowned. "What's so special about June tenth?"

"I would hazard a guess it is the day on which Grand Duchess Tatiana of Russia was born," Kirill said.

"Is she the one they made all the movies about?"

Kirill answered again. "That was the youngest daughter, Anastasia. Tatiana was the second oldest."

"I've always assumed you chose Tatiana because it was a pretty name," Kate revealed. "I had no idea there was such a story behind it."

William smiled and put up his hand. "That was my fault," he confessed. "It was hard for me to talk about what happened with dad, so I asked Mike not to tell people about my Russian relations, or where the name had really come from."

"It's nice that you decided to use it. I think your grandmother would be pleased."

In a cautious but curious tone, Kirill asked, "You didn't want to name your daughter Rebecca instead?"

"It was on the list, but I was still in a pretty bad place about my problems with mom, so I wasn't ready to be that forgiving," William explained. "Tatiana was a much easier option."

Michelle's lips twitched. "Don't worry, Kirill. There's plenty of time for Rebecca still to be used," she oh-so nonchalantly added.

Kirill drew his brows together, not quite understanding her joke.

But Kate knew _exactly_ what she was trying to say. Her sister gave her dagger eyes, warning her to shut the fuck up and stay away from the topic of kids.

William kept the discussion moving. "Are there any mementos to go with the photos?" he said to his still-confused twin.

Kirill nodded and handed his brother a small, fabric purse—similar to the one Michelle used to hold coins for the bus or parking metres.

William opened the purse to tip the contents into his palm—a matching pair of battered, gold bands.

"Boris and Maria's wedding rings," Kirill said.

Michelle collected the larger ring and held it up, slowly running it back and forth between her thumb and her index finger. She drew it close as a mark on the inside caught her eye. "There's an engraving on this one," she pointed out.

"On both of them," Kirill corrected. "The couple's initials plus the date of the wedding."

"We did that with ours as well," William revealed, holding up his left hand to briefly wiggle his ring finger at them. "A nice personal touch."

Michelle huffed as she set the ring down. "We had them engraved a year after we got married, and it was nothing to do with the personal touch. My idiot jarhead of a husband kept taking his off and leaving it in the stupidest places. The last time it happened, it took him a _month_ to get it back, because he couldn't prove the damn thing was his."

William grinned. "She told me it was either get it engraved, or have a ring tattooed right onto my finger."

"You could just have learned not to leave it in stupid places," was Kate's opinion. "That would have been an even better solution."

"Says the woman who manages to lock herself out of her car on an embarrassingly frequent basis."

Kirill gave his girlfriend a doleful look. "I would defend you, _kotyonok_ , but you know as well as I do that I wouldn't have a leg to stand on."

Kate flipped the brothers the bird.

"Did your grandmother leave you anything else?" Michelle asked.

Kirill turned to the box again. "You will not like it very much, but yes, there is one other thing." He brought out a bracelet of sorts, with five small items dangling from it. But the items weren't trinkets or charms—they were dented, tarnished bullet casings.

Michelle looked at Kirill askance. "Do we event _want_ to know where the hell those casings came from?"

Kirill gave the bracelet to William, who turned it slowly to look at each casing in turn. "These are way too small to have come from a sniper rifle. They look like twenty-fives to me."

"They were fired from a Tokarev TT-33," said Kirill with an approving nod. "Semi-automatic, twenty-five millimetre, brass-jacket rounds."

"Who or what did our grandmother shoot?"

"A squad of German Sixth Army soldiers. They walked into an ambush babushka's comrades had set. She took out five of them herself."

Kate winced. "And she was what, twenty-two years old?"

"There was no room for innocence at Stalingrad, Katenka. It was a very long and terrible battle, fought a city block at a time. She knew it was either kill or be killed."

William agreed with his brother's conclusion. "The Germans would happily have done the same to her. Worse, actually, considering she was a woman."

"I understand why she had it made, but it's not the prettiest heirloom I've ever seen," Michelle complained. "Not something I can put out on the living room shelf next to my great-aunt's Baccarat vase."

"Hmm," was all Kirill said.

Uh oh. That didn't sound good.

Her husband beat her to the punch. "I don't like the way you said that," William told his twin. "What the hell's wrong?"

Kirill looked at each of them in turn. "Before we go any further, the three of you should probably know that there are worse things in this trunk than a bracelet made out of bullet casings."

"How much worse?" Michelle asked, feeling her heart begin to pound. Kate had been right to complain—why was nothing ever simple when the Coopers and Orlovs were involved?

"Instead of explaining, why don't I just show you?" Kirill counter-proposed.

"Is it going to upset us?"

"You are decent people, so yes, it is," Kirill replied, before hastily adding, "but not in a way that will give you nightmares, if that is what you are worried about."

"Go for it," Kate said. "We're all sensible, educated adults, so whatever it is, I'm sure we can deal with the strain."

Kirill used his right hand to hold the lid of the suitcase open, then with his left hand, pulled out yet another black and white photo. "This is our grandfather and some of his Army friends in May 1945, just after the Battle of Berlin."

Kate wrinkled her nose. "Jesus, Kir, are those dead German soldiers he's standing over?"

"Dead SS soldiers, to be precise."

"Who the hell has their photo taken standing over a bunch of corpses?"

In response, three more items were laid on the table. "These are the insignia patches, neck-pin and belt buckle our grandfather took from one of the SS corpses." But Kirill was saving the worst for last. "And this is the flag he tore down from the wall of the SS command post he and his comrades overran."

An ominously familiar flag, in equal parts black, white and red, decorated with one of the world's most recognized and hated symbols.

Nobody said a word.

William rested his head in his hands. "That's a fucking swastika, Kir."

"Yes, Viko. I am _painfully_ aware of that."

"Why the _fuck_ did our grandfather keep a Nazi banner?" William wanted to know.

Kirill held up a calming hand. "Before you judge our dedushka too harshly, you have to put yourself in his shoes. He did not keep a swastika flag because he was secretly a Nazi, to make it a treasured belonging with pride of place on his living room wall. He took it as a victor's trophy, to remind himself and other Russians of the hardships he and their country endured to conquer Hitler and the Third Reich." He pointed to the centre circle. "You see that mark? That is a boot print. And that stain? That is piss. _That_ is what our grandfather thought of the Nazis. Only good enough to piss and stamp on. I think if he had had the chance, he would also have used this to wipe his ass."

"I understand," William sighed. "It's just…"

"It is difficult to look at, I know. I was shocked when I first saw it myself."

"Did your grandmother show you the flag?" Michelle asked her brother-in-law. It wasn't the kind of thing she would ever show to her kids, but she hadn't lost her home and family to the Nazis, so it wasn't really her place to complain.

Kirill nodded. "When I was fourteen, yes. I was writing an essay on the Great Patriotic War for school, and she wanted me to understand what defeating the Nazis meant for the people of the Soviet states."

Kate frowned. "Is that what World War Two's called in Russia, the Great Patriotic War?"

"The terms don't correspond exactly, but they're close enough for a layman's discussion," William explained, putting his Bachelor's thesis to use. He smirked slightly. "Just don't ask what Stalin and his buddies were doing from thirty-nine to forty-one. The answer's kinda complicated."

"It certainly is," Kirill agreed.

Silence again, then Kate said, "You're right, babe, we shouldn't judge your grandpa too harshly. There's probably plenty of stuff like this in attics and basements across the United States as well. Taken by American soldiers, stuck in a box and ignored or forgotten about for the last sixty-five years."

"Makes me wonder if mom or dad ever found anything like this when their own parents died," Michelle added. "Grandpa McNally didn't serve, but Grandpa Ferguson fought in France."

Kirill waved at the gruesome haul. "What do you think we should do with all this?"

"If it was up to me, I'd take it outside and set it on fire," William bluntly said.

Michelle shook her head. "We're not doing that."

"You want to keep it?" her husband asked, looking aghast at the thought.

"Of course I don't," was her calm reply. "But like it or not, these items are part of history. If we destroy them, we would be helping to erase the record of what Hitler and the Nazis did. We think they're horrible to look at, but that's because we all understand exactly what they represent. A lot of people don't, some through no fault of their own. If we destroy these items or hide them from view, we create an environment where that ignorance becomes the norm. And that's _really_ scary, because if people don't know when or why the Holocaust happened, how will they recognize the signs if some madman ever tries to do it again?"

"We could give the items to a museum," Kirill said. "Either here, or back home in the States."

The idea met with William's approval. "I'd be totally fine with that, but I'd prefer to talk to a place in the States." His expression soured. "When it comes to the Nazis, the Swiss don't exactly have the cleanest and purest of records."

"You could sell it all and give the money to a good cause," Kate proposed.

Kirill shook his head. "That is a nice idea in theory, but you could not control who the buyer would be. You could end up selling it to a white supremacist group."

"Let's take it all home," Michelle announced, "and once I'm back at work, I'll have a chat with Jonathan in my company's Art and Culture team. I'm sure he said his wife's on the board of the Virginia Holocaust Museum. If she is, she'll be able to help. I'll also check it's legal for us to actually transport the items into the States. They're probably covered under First Amendment rights, but let's not take any stupid risks."

William turned to his twin. "Are you okay with giving the stuff away?"

"Of course I am," Kirill said. "Part of the reason I held onto the items is that I didn't know what to do with them, and was too embarrassed to ask other people for help."

"What was the rest of the reason?"

"I knew how important they were to our grandfather, and therefore to our grandmother as well." He flashed them a bashful grin. "I was worried that if I destroyed them or gave them away, babushka would come back as a ghost to haunt me to death."

Smiling back, William asked, "Is there anything else in that trunk that's likely to make us all need a drink?"

"One other thing, but nowhere near as troubling as the SS items." Kirill turned to the case again and drew out another gun, which he laid on top of the flag. "This is the Walther P38 Boris took from one of the officers in that photo. But the firing pin has been removed, so it cannot be used."

Michelle sighed and massaged her temples with her thumbs. "Why did I ever think this would be a normal vacation?"

"Sorry, hon, you wanted normal, you should have married another man."

"Don't remind me."

Kate slapped her hands on her knees. "Okay, we have a bunch of photos, a locket, a bible, two wedding rings, three spoons, a belt buckle, a spectacles case, the world's most gruesome bracelet, two guns and some Nazi memorabilia, including a swastika flag. What else is there?"

Kirill took the unsubtle hint, and turned his attention back to the trunk.

He drew out a long, flat, blue cardboard box, opening it as he set it down. "These are Boris and Maria's Defence of Stalingrad medals." The medals themselves were tarnished and dull, but the olive green and red stripe ribbons were still in almost pristine condition.

"They _both_ received it?" Kate asked.

"They both contributed to the city's defence in a way that was worthy of recognition, so yes, they did."

"The ribbons look like they were made yesterday."

"These were babushka's proudest possessions. She took _very_ good care of them." Kirill showed them another grin. "When I was fourteen, I took the medals without her permission to show to the girl who lived in the apartment downstairs."

"What happened?" Michelle asked, fairly sure she knew what the answer would be.

"Babushka thrashed me within an inch of my life."

"Were you trying to impress her?" Kate asked. "The girl, I mean?"

"Of course I was. I had this foolish idea that if I showed her my grandparents' medals, she would agree to have sex with me."

William grunted and rolled his eyes. "And here I thought that was a recent thing."

"Your grandmother sounds like a scary woman," Michelle observed. It was just a pity Maria had passed—it would be useful to have someone around who knew how to keep the younger brother in line.

"Scary doesn't even _begin_ to cover it. She was one of the few people in our apartment building the criminal elements never harassed."

"Oma Johanna was exactly the same," William added. "She could literally make a grown man cry just by looking at him the wrong way."

Kate snickered. "Bet the two of 'em would've gotten along like a house on fire."

"Or they'd have strangled each other to death," William countered.

"That's the kind of grandmother I want to be," Michelle announced. "The badass, tough-as-nails old lady everybody's terrified of, and who doesn't take shit from anyone, especially not her husband or kids."

Kirill frowned, opened his mouth to share an opinion, then wisely decided, on second thoughts, to keep that opinion to himself. He brought out another slender box, but this one was red instead of blue. "This is the medal Boris received for participating in the Battle of Berlin." The medal was in better condition, but the red, black and gold ribbon was slightly frayed along both sides.

William picked it out of the box, turned it over to look at the date, then snorted slightly.

"What's so funny?" Kirill asked.

"Just thinking how ironic it is, that our grandfather helped to conquer and capture the city where you and I were eventually born."

"Hmm, yeah, that's a good point," Michelle said. She looked to Kirill. "How'd you think he'd feel about that?"

"About the fact we were born in Berlin?"

"Yes."

"Put it this way. One of the first things our grandmother told me when papa and I arrived in Moscow was that she was glad our dedushka had passed, because it meant he wouldn't have to deal with the shame of having a grandson born on enemy soil."

"Wow."

"She really said that?" William asked.

"Viko, when I say our grandmother hated Germans, I mean she really, _really_ hated Germans. With every last ounce of her soul."

That didn't seem very fair to Michelle. "Not all Germans were Nazis, though. Look at your Oma Johanna."

"A lot of Soviets made that distinction, but our grandmother Maria did not. In her mind, German and Nazi were one and the same."

"Did that affect how she treated you?"

"To some extent, yes," Kirill said. "She was very cold with me at first, but as time passed, and she got to know me better, she became much fonder of me."

"What about you?" Kate said to William. "You and your mom moved back to the States before the Cold War was done. Did people ever give you hassle because you had a Russian father?"

"My grandparents certainly didn't," William said. "My aunt Abigail did, a little bit, but that was less about my dad being Russian and more about her problems with mom. The kids at school gave me all kinds of crap until my mom changed my surname to Cooper."

Kirill shrugged. "Children are assholes."

"I hope you're not including your nephew and niece in that," Michelle warned.

" _Most_ children are assholes. Yours are both extremely nice. Except when a certain young lady wants a second bedtime story. She turns into quite the little bully then."

William muttered something in Russian.

With narrowed eyes, Michelle asked, "What the hell did you just say?"

"He said 'she gets that from her mother'," Kirill revealed with a shit-eating grin.

"You're such an _asshole_ ," William complained.

"What are younger brothers for?"

"Killing, preferably?"

Michelle raised a warning finger. "No fighting in here," she said. She turned the finger on her spouse. "And I'll deal with you later, Cooper. Show you just how much of a bully I can be."

William grinned and flashed his brows, inviting her to do her worst.

Her warning delivered, she turned to Kirill and said, "You said when you arrived in Moscow, your grandmother told you she was glad your grandfather was dead."

"Yes."

"When did he die?"

"1958."

"That's young, even for the time and the place. What happened to him?"

In a weary voice, Kirill said, "He drank himself to a premature death. A time-honoured, Russian tradition."

Kate retrieved the wedding photo from underneath some other items. "That must have been very hard on Maria, to lose her husband at such a young age. Did she ever consider getting married again?"

Kirill shook his head. "I suppose she was young enough that she could have, but she found her solace in other places."

She probably hadn't turned to booze, given the cause of her husband's death. "In religion?" Michelle guessed.

A nod this time instead of a shake. "As much as she could, living in what was officially an atheist state."

"I don't remember dad ever being particularly religious, so I'm guessing he didn't follow his mother's example," William said.

"Politics was our papa's creed," Kirill explained. "When Boris died, babushka turned to the church, but papa turned to the Komsomol instead."

Kate asked the obvious question. "What the hell is the Komsomol?"

"The _kommunisticheskiy soyuz molodyozhi_ ," William said.

"Oh, like _that_ helps."

Grinning, William added, "The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League. Pretty much the youth wing of the Soviet Communist Party."

Michelle put two and two together. "Is that how your father got his start with the KGB?"

"He had no useful family connections that I know of, so probably, yes."

She was about to ask another question about their father's KGB links, when William laid a hand on her thigh and gave it a tiny squeeze. She heard his warning, loud and clear—his father's KGB career was something to approach with care.

"Is there anything else?" William asked. "From our grandparents, I mean?"

"That is everything," Kirill said.

"Let's do what we did before, move all of this stuff aside."

Once the coffee table was clear, Kirill turned to the trunk again. "Everything from here on is either mine, or belonged to one of our parents."

He brought out a typed-up stack of paper cross-tied with a piece of twine. He placed the stack in front of his twin. "These are the manuscripts I told you about. Two full-length novels and one collection of short stories."

"So dad really _was_ a writer," William murmured. "He wasn't just pretending to be one."

"It is like I said earlier, _brat_. Sometimes, the easiest lie to tell is the lie closest to the truth. It is likely the KGB created a cover story for him based on his strongest skills."

"You read all this?" William asked, flicking through the sheets with a thumb.

"All of it, yes."

"Any good?"

"The first novel was hard to read, but I quite enjoyed the second one, plus a couple of the short stories."

"Think we could get them published?"

"Probably not. We would have to translate them first, and I don't think they would translate well."

"Too Russian, huh?" Kate teased. "Everyone dies tragically at the end?"

William laid his hand on the pile. To Michelle's eyes, there was something sacred about the movement, as if her husband was reaching out to commune with the dead. "I used to write all the time when I was in my teens," he revealed. "Guess that's something I got from dad."

"Why don't you write now?" Kate asked.

"The usual excuses," William replied. "No time, no energy, no inclination. Always something more important or more pressing to do. Especially since we had the kids."

"You write a very good report," Kirill told his brother. "Your analysis of the political fallout from the Serbian president's resignation was extremely well received, especially up on the seventh floor."

"Great," William drolly said.

Michelle patted her husband on the knee. "You could always take up writing again when you retire."

"Assuming you live that long," Kate added.

"Why the hell wouldn't my husband live long enough to retire?"

"The job might kill him," Kate explained. "I mean, he _does_ work for the CIA."

Kirill had an idea of his own. "Or, he might drop dead of a heart attack from eating one too many snickerdoodles."

William wasn't amused. "Kir, I know I've asked you this before, but could you _please_ just go fuck yourself?"

"I have tried, _brat_ , but sadly, I am an inch too short."

"More than an inch," Kate murmured, but loud enough for her boyfriend to hear.

"It is not the size of your pencil that matters, Katenka, it is how elegantly you write your name."

"I wouldn't know," William very smugly said. "I use a really expensive pen."

"But your handwriting is terrible. You don't even try to join up the letters."

"That's because I always write in uppercase."

As Kate laughed, Michelle raised a protesting hand. "Okay, can we _please_ keep the conversation to something slightly more sophisticated than euphemisms about how well-endowed you both are?" Although, it did raise an interesting question—if the two men were identical twins, how different could the answer be?

The expression on her sister's face told her she wasn't the only person thinking that particular thought…

"We could always talk about guns instead," Kirill proposed.

Michelle gave him a thunderous look, then gestured for him to go back to his task.

Kirill's next trip into the trunk produced an oval jewellery box finished in patterned, dark green suede. Like most of the other items they'd seen, it was scratched and faded from years of use.

He placed the box on the arm of William's side of the couch. William grasped it, cracked the lid and let out an admiring sound.

"Papa's KGB cufflinks," Kirill explained. "Real ones given to him by the actual KGB, not the shitty fake ones you can buy on eBay for twenty dollars."

"You ever wear them? William asked. "Back when you lived in Moscow, I mean?"

"A few times, yes, but only on very formal occasions. Mostly funerals and weddings. The occasional work event."

"I wouldn't recommend wearing them to a work event now," Kate said with a grin. "Might not go over too well, especially with the higher-ups."

William handed the box to Michelle.

She sighed as she took it from him. "I still can't believe your dad was actually a KGB spy. It's like something out of a Robert Ludlum novel."

"How the _hell_ do you spend twelve years of your life pretending to be someone you're not?" Kate asked, echoing her sister's thoughts. "I can barely remember to fake being single to mom and dad, and I only talk to them once or twice a week."

"Illegals are extremely well trained," William told them. "By the time they're put out in the field, they pretty much completely believe they are who their cover story says they are. They don't have to remember to fake it, because they already think they're telling the truth."

"We should also keep in mind that papa was not an illegal in the traditional sense," Kirill added. "Illegals usually operate under another name, but he was always Alexander Orlov from Moscow, so in that respect, there was no cover story to hold."

"He was always Alexander Orlov from Moscow, he just lied to everyone about who and what Alexander Orlov from Moscow was," Kate concluded.

William nodded. "Everyone he knew in Berlin thought he was a political activist in exile, but he was actually an officer of the KGB."

Michelle worded her next question with care. "You never noticed anything strange that might have given the game away?"

"Like what?"

"You're the one who works for the CIA, honey, so you tell me," Michelle countered, but in a non-challenging tone. "What kind of behaviours does the Company focus on when it's looking for an illegal? Phone calls in the middle of the night? Strangers knocking on the door? Always having more money than your job would officially pay?"

"Those would all be giveaways, yes," William acknowledged. "I don't remember things like that happening with dad, but it _was_ thirty years ago, and I was only a kid. Even if there were obvious signs, I'm not sure I would have noticed them. What about you?" he said to Kirill. "You were always good at watching people, and your memory's much better than mine. You remember ever seeing anything weird?"

"There was one particular moment, yes, but I didn't join the dots until many years later, so it is probably just hindsight talking."

"What moment was that?" Kate asked.

Kirill leaned back in his seat. "A few months before the split, papa got into a fight with the old woman who lived in the apartment below us."

William groaned. "Frau Vogel, I remember her, yeah. Jesus, she was a miserable bitch."

"What was the fight about?" Michelle asked.

"She had come upstairs to complain that Viko and I were making too much noise."

"Which we probably were," William interjected.

Kirill grinned. "Which we probably were, yes," he repeated. "Mama was out at one of her drawing classes, so it was papa who answered the door."

"What happened?"

"They argued, papa told Frau Vogel to go fuck herself, she threatened to call the police."

"What's so weird about that?" Kate asked. "I mean, telling an old woman to go fuck herself isn't the _nicest_ thing you can do, but it hardly counts as weird."

Quietly, Kirill said, "The weird part was how papa responded."

"What did he do?"

"He told Frau Vogel to go right ahead, because he would call the police as well, tell them what she and her husband had done during the war."

"How did Frau Vogel respond?"

"She went back downstairs to her apartment and never bothered us again."

Michelle connected the pieces together. "You think your dad had some kind of dirt on her?"

Kirill nodded. "I mentioned the incident to him a few years later, when we had a problem neighbour through the wall in our apartment building in Moscow. He told me that before they retired, the Vogels had owned a manufacturing company which used slave labour during the war."

"And he wouldn't have known that if he was only a struggling writer who did translation work to make ends meet," William concluded. "He would only have known that if he was hooked into the KGB's intelligence systems."

"Or the Stasi's, but the point is the same."

"Not to sound cruel," Michelle went on, "but you boys _do_ realize that if your mom had kept her wits about her, she would have figured out the truth as well?"

William gave her a quizzical look. "What do you mean?"

"She thought your dad was a political dissident who'd fled to the west to avoid arrest and execution, right?"

"Yeah?"

"So it never occurred to her if that was the case, returning to the Soviet Union would've been a death sentence for him? She never thought to challenge him on why he was moving back to Moscow, when doing so made _zero_ sense?"

William sighed. "I guess not, no."

Kate took the other side. "In her defense, how rationally would you behave if William came home from work one day and told you he was moving to Moscow in four days' time, and taking Andrew or Tatiana with him?"

That was a legitimate point. "I wouldn't be rational at all," Michelle said. "I'd set him on fire and cut his balls off with my largest Sabatier knife."

Beside her, William winced. "Thanks, babe. Good to know."

"Just be glad she'd used a sharp knife," Kate warned. "I'd use a rusty spoon instead."

Very calmly, Kirill said, "When we get home, remind me to go for a tetanus shot."

"You planning on doing something that'll make me want to cut your balls of?" Kate wanted to know.

"No, but it never hurts to be prepared."

William reclaimed the cufflink case, closed it over and set it aside.

Kirill retrieved another item. "This is mine," he said, laying a sketch pad on the table.

Kate picked up the pad to flick through the pages one by one. "Oh my God, Kira, these are _amazing_ ," she said. "When did you draw them?"

"The Moscow stuff when I was in my teens, the landscapes when I was in the Army."

"You obviously take after your mom." She turned the pad and held it up to show off a stunning black and white sketch. "Look at the detail in _that_ ," she admiringly said.

Michelle recognized the subject. "We've been there," she reminded her other half. "That was the one down next to the river, right?"

William nodded. "The Vodovzodnaya Tower, yeah."

"Trying saying that five times in a row when you're drunk," Kate joked.

"Kate's right, the detail's amazing," William said. He took the pad from Kate and flicked through a handful of pages, past drawings of various scenes, mostly Moscow bridges and buildings, but also some rivers, mountains and parks. "Oh, oh, oh, and what do we have here?" he announced, holding the pad to show them a sketch of a lovely, young girl in a serious state of undress.

Kirill let out a wistful sigh. "That is my first love, Xenia Petrovna Golovina."

"How old were you both when you drew her?" Michelle asked, hoping the answer was more than sixteen.

"We were in our final year of school, so we were both seventeen going on eighteen."

"You dated her?"

"I suppose you could call it that, yes."

Kate rolled her eyes. "Why'd the two of you break up?"

"She accepted a university place in Novosibirsk, I was called up for my two years of national service."

"You stay in touch with her?"

"No."

"You ever see her again?"

"No."

"Any regrets?"

"None at all."

"I thought you were in love with her," Michelle said.

"I was, but it was the kind of love an eighteen-year-old feels."

Kate translated for them. "So, the kind of love you feel with your dick."

"If you want to put it so crudely, yes."

"You said she was your first love," William recalled, smiling slightly. "Did you mean she was, you know, your _first_ love?"

" _Bozhe moi_ , no," Kirill scoffed. "By the time Ksyusha and I met, that milestone was long in the past."

"And there's another topic I don't want to review," Michelle warned. She already knew from chatting to Kate how far and wide her brother-in-law had apparently roamed during his years as a single man. Listening to even _half_ of it had made her want to go for a long bath and a nap. In more ways than one, it was a miracle the man was alive.

Kirill set the sketch pad aside. "These are also mine," he said, bringing out another flat box, which interestingly, he gave to his girlfriend instead of his brother.

"Ooh, shiny," Kate said, opening the box to admire another impressive collection of medals. "What are these called?"

"This one is the Zhukov Medal, this one is the Suvorov Medal and this one is the For Courage Medal."

"What'd you get them for?"

"The Zhukov was for excellence in combat training, because I finished first in my battalion's winter and summer survival courses. I earned the Suvorov in the First Chechen Campaign and the For Courage in the Dagestan War. I had some service ribbons as well, but they weren't important, so I kept them in my Moscow apartment. God only knows where they are now."

"You were a good little soldier, huh?"

"My mentor told me I was one of the best he had ever trained."

There was pride in his voice as he spoke, but notes of guilt and sadness as well. Which made Michelle silently wonder—what _exactly_ had his mentor trained him to do?

As Kate handed the box to William, she asked, "You have any medals from your time in the Corps?"

"A few, yeah. I never saw combat as much as Kirill did, so they're mostly commendations and service ribbons, but I _was_ awarded a Purple Heart."

"What'd you earn it for?"

"Got caught up in a skirmish outside a shopping mall in Yemen, took a through-and-through bullet here," he said, tapping on the left side of his torso, a few inches above his hip. "Almost bled out, left me with a helluva scar, but it was also how I met Nigel, so in the end, I guess it was a good thing."

Kate gave him a stricken look. "How the hell is almost bleeding out a good thing?"

"Nigel was the one who found out Kirill was still alive," William said. "If I hadn't met him, the four of us wouldn't be sitting here going through this box."

"Then I think we all owe Nigel a drink."

"The three of you might," Kirill said. "I owe him at _least_ a couple of bottles."

Kate raised a hand. "Before we look at the next round of stuff, can I ask a question?"

"Of course you can," her boyfriend said.

"Can you explain again how Russian middle names work? I thought I understood it, but you said your girlfriend's middle name was Petrovna, and that doesn't sound like a woman's name to me."

"That's because it isn't."

"It's a patronymic," William explained. "It means 'daughter of Peter'. The masculine version is Petrovich, which means 'son of Peter'."

Kate nodded to show she understood. "So your middle name is Alexandrovich, because your father's name was Alexander," she said to Kirill.

"That is correct. My name basically means Kirill son of Alexander Orlov."

She turned to William again. "So why are you William Alexander? Shouldn't you be William Alexandrovich instead?"

"I probably should, yeah, but mom and dad couldn't agree on what names to give us when we were born. Dad wanted us both to have traditional Russian names, but mom wanted to name one of us after her paternal grandfather."

Kirill continued the explanation. "So they compromised and met halfway. Mama named William and papa named me. But mama decided to make William's middle name Alexander, so we would not be too different. It is not a proper Russian patronymic, but it was better than not including papa's name at all."

"I know you gave them regular middle names, but if they were Russian kids, what would Tania and Drusha use as their patronymic?" Kate then asked.

Kirill answered for his brother. "The name 'William' does not really exist in Russian, so they would not have one, or they would have to make one up."

"Really?"

"Russian names tend to come either from Greek, or one of the older Slavic languages," William explained. "My name's Germanic."

"Probably a good thing your parents divided you the way they did," Kate said. She blushed and waved an apologetic hand. "Not that they should have divided you at all, of course. But you know what I mean."

William nodded. "It's okay, I do, and yeah, it would have been hard to be a William in Moscow in the early eighties. Or to be a Kirill in Delaware, for that matter."

"I am not sure what would have been worse," said Kirill. "Listening to Americans mangle my name, or to Russians mangling yours."

Kate frowned. "Do I mangle your name when I say it?"

"A little bit, yes. It is supposed to be pronounced 'Key-reel', with the emphasis on the second syllable," Kirill explained. "But I know that seems unnatural for English speakers, so I don't mind if you pronounce it the western way instead."

Michelle saw an opportunity to give her brother-in-law a poke. "So if you ever have children, Kirill, the patronymic bit in the middle would be Kirillovich or Kirillovna. Is that right?"

Beside her, William coughed to smother his grin.

But Kirill refused to swallow the bait. "That is correct," he simply said, then turned his attention back to the trunk.

Next up was a swivel trigger lobster clasp keychain with two items wound on the loop. One was a ring, the other was an actual key.

William took the keychain from Kirill, focusing on the battered gold band. It was simple and plain and very obviously sized for a man. "Is this dad's wedding ring?" he asked, eyes going wide, looking and sounding totally shocked.

Kirill gave his brother a nod.

William swallowed and cleared his throat. "I have mom's in a box in my drawer at home." He laughed slightly, but Michelle knew it was nerves at work instead of humour. "I always assumed dad would have sold his or thrown it away."

"He did not wear it after we moved back to Moscow. I only found it after he died, when babushka and I were going through his things."

William set the keychain down on the table. "Not sure I even know what to do with it," he said. "It's the same basic design as mom's, so I guess they bought them as a pair, but given the way their marriage ended, it seems kinda wrong to store them together."

"Then you keep mama's, I keep papa's, and we don't worry about it for now," Kirill said.

Kate had a better idea. "Or you could have them melted down, made into something totally new."

William nodded, slightly at first, then more firmly as the suggestion took root. "Yeah, I think I like that idea." He furrowed his brows. "Although, then we'd have to decide what that totally new thing should be."

"How about a matching pair of bullets?" Michelle drily put in. "Since you're both so stupidly fond of your guns. You could even have them engraved with your names."

William pursed his lips. "If I already own the bullet that has my name on it, does that mean I can't ever be shot?"

"There would not be much metal to work with," Kirill pointed out. "The bullets would be extremely small."

"Size isn't everything, Kir. You should know that."

Michelle raised a finger again. "Don't," she warned her shit-stirring spouse. "Just don't, okay?"

William dutifully dipped his head.

"What's the key for?" Kate asked, picking the keychain up to give it a jangling shake.

"It opens the door to my grandmother's apartment in Novokosino."

"And, uh, _why_ do you still have it? Your grandmother's been dead for what, eighteen years?

"Nineteen," Kirill corrected. He shrugged slightly. "I don't really know why I kept it. Until now, it honestly never occurred to me to throw it away."

Michelle couldn't help but smile. She was fairly sure she knew why Kirill still had the key—for the same reason his grandmother had kept the salvaged buckle and spoons—because it was all he had left of a place he'd once considered a home.

"Think it still works?" William asked.

"Whoever took over the apartment after babushka died would almost certainly have changed the locks, so probably not."

Kirill's excavations resumed.

Next came a small bundle of photos of various sizes, conditions and shapes. "These are some photos from the years in Berlin." Kirill handed the bundle straight to William, flashing a slightly apologetic look. "There used to be more, but papa destroyed a handful of them, and I mislaid some in my last apartment move."

William rifled through the snaps, smiling and sighing as he went. "Mom barely had anything from the years in Berlin, and most of what she did have only showed me." He laughed out loud as he came to what was obviously an amusing scene. "Now, who might this young idiot be?" he asked, holding the photo for all to see. A young boy of six or seven, standing on top of a bed, legs spread wide, hands on hips, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, as naked as the day he was born except for a cape made out of a sheet.

Kirill shook his head. "That is not me, _brat_. You were the one who liked to be naked."

William peered at the photo again. "Fuck, you're right. That _is_ me."

"Quite the little exhibitionist, weren't you?" Michelle said.

Kate snickered. "Just be glad it was something he eventually grew out of."

"Pretty sure that's you with dad," William said, laying an older, smaller snap on the table. This one was of a long-haired man fast asleep on a three-seater couch, with a tiny, dark-haired newborn baby equally fast asleep on his chest.

Kirill leaned in to look at the photo. "Not sure. It could be either one of us." He flipped it over, revealing some scribbled notes on the back. "Shura and Kira, June Second, Seventy-Two," he read.

"So it _is_ you," Kate confirmed. "Taken when you were what, ten days old?"

"I should have known it was me by how tiny the baby is," Kirill said to William. "You were heavier by a couple of pounds. Or sturdier. Or bigger-boned. Or whatever bullshit word you want me to use that won't hurt your delicate, American feelings."

The gesture William gave his brother had nothing delicate about it…

Michelle picked out a photo from school where Kirill's arm was set in a cast, and a photo from what looked like a birthday party, where William was bawling his eyes out while his embarrassed mother looked on. Having witnessed her fair share of similar moments, she could sympathize with Rebecca's response. "What the hell were you crying about?" she asked.

"No fucking idea. It was thirty years ago. I was probably disappointed with my present, or wanted whatever Kirill had."

"You boys didn't share your things?"

William made a disparaging sound. "Not a chance."

"His things were his and my things were mine," Kirill firmly said. "We sometimes allowed the other to borrow, depending on what it was and what mood we were in, but taking without permission meant instant and violent war."

"I'm _so_ glad you grew out of that as well," Michelle sarcastically said, knowing full well the two men had done no such thing. Four months on from the incident with Kirill's new car, and William still hadn't filled the hole they'd somehow managed to make in the lawn.

Kate tapped on the photo from school. "Is this from when you broke your arm falling off something in the park?"

"A statue of a standing bear, yes," Kirill confirmed.

William snorted. "You should've seen him. Standing up on the damn thing's head, punching the air like he'd just climbed the north face of the Eiger, and ten seconds later, he's rolling around on the grass screaming like he's about to die."

"I was eight years old, and I had just broken both of the bones in one of my arms," Kirill protested.

Kate (the doctor) winced. "Yeah, that would hurt."

"Try being shot," William muttered.

"I _have_ been shot. Several times. It hurts like hell, but breaking my arm hurt even more."

Michelle zeroed in on another snap, this one of William and Kirill's parents. She'd never seen a decent photo of Alexander, so it was good to finally put a face to a name. And something else about it stood out. She waved the photo at her spouse. "You mentioned earlier that you get your looks from the Cooper side of the tree, but I'm not so sure. It's quite hard to see because of the long hair and the beard, but you're the _spitting_ image of your father."

William frowned. "You think?"

Kate angled her head to look at the image. "Jesus, yeah," she murmured. "Mike's right. You boys could be your father's clone."

Michelle examined the photo again. "You certainly don't take after your mother," she said. "You're dark-haired and you tan really well, which probably comes from your Russian genes, or maybe from your Oma Johanna, but your mom has a much fairer complexion that I'm guessing comes from her father's side. The Coopers came over from Ireland, right?" Something else about the photo stood out. "It's interesting, actually. If there's one person here who really looks like Rebecca, it's Ka—"

She clamped her mouth shut.

Oh, God. Talk about a Freudian moment? Or Oedipal? Or whatever the hell that particular problem was called? Was Kirill even aware of the fact he'd started a romance with a woman who closely resembled his mom? A mom who was still the source of some serious abandonment issues?

Fortunately, nobody had noticed her slip—they were all too busy looking through the rest of the photos. She dropped the image back in the pile and made a quick mental note to _never_ think of the matter again.

Kate showed her another snap, of Alexander and Rebecca celebrating their wedding day in January 1972. This one had the advantage of being in colour. Or disadvantage, considering how the subjects were dressed.

Alexander was wearing a dark blue, three-piece suit (no doubt manufactured from the finest polyester knit) but instead of the usual shirt and tie, he'd paired it with a beige turtleneck sweater. Rebecca's outfit was no less endearing, consisting of an alarmingly short, floral-print dress, a pair of light brown, knee-high boots and the world's floppiest, widest-brimmed hat. Like her husband's great-grandmother before her, she was smiling and holding a posy of flowers. Unlike the late Sophia Orlova, she was very much in the family way.

"Is this a thing for the Orlov men?" Michelle said to her spouse. "You only decide to do the right thing once there's a baby on the way?"

William shrugged. "At least we're consistent," he said, flashing a grin at his twin.

"I don't know why you are grinning at me," Kirill complained. "I have never put a bun in anyone's oven."

"That you know of," Kate added.

"That I know of," Kirill repeated. "I might have fathered a whole army's worth of _Kirillovichi_."

Michelle pretended to shudder. "Now _there's_ an image none of us need."

William gathered the photos together, patting them at the edges and corners to shape them into a tidy pile, then laid them on another table.

Kirill took the unsubtle hint. "Only a couple of items to look at now." He brought out a few pieces of paper. "These are some family documents, including my Army discharge papers and various birth and death certificates." To his brother, he softly said, "And this is the letter I told you about, that mama wrote to papa on our last day together." As he concluded, he laid an envelope on the table.

William picked the envelope up and gently extracted the letter from it. The piece of paper was yellowed with age, and taped together in numerous places.

Michelle watched as her husband read the note, then read it again, then a third time. When he was done, he drew in a deep, ragged breath, laid the letter on the table, sighed and covered his face with his hands. She knew he was trying not to cry.

Kirill opened his mouth to speak; she raised a hand and shook her head, silently asking him to give his older brother some space.

Eventually, William found his voice. "Mom thought she was doing us both a favour," he hoarsely said. "That taking me out with her for the day and leaving you to go to Moscow with dad would somehow be easier on us."

"I'm guessing that wasn't the case," Kate quietly said.

William barked a cynical laugh. "At eight in the morning, I had a father and a twin brother, at eight in the evening, I didn't," he said. "In the space of a day, half my world completely vanished, and nobody ever told me why. Nothing about that was _remotely_ easy."

Michelle was surprised when Kirill came to their mother's defence.

"I don't think there was any way she could have done it that would have been anything but traumatic for us," he said. "The sudden loss was a terrible shock, for you just as much as for me, but other solutions would have been even worse. Can you imagine how the two of us would have reacted, if mama and papa had sat us down, and told us what they were going to do, in advance of them _actually_ doing it?"

"You'd have thrown one of your epic fits," William said with a knowing smile. "War crimes or not, Frau Vogel would've been back at the door."

Kirill huffed. "Can I remind you of what you said six hours ago about the fate of the Space Lego set?"

"I know it's easy to say long after the fact, but I don't understand why your mom didn't just take both of you with her," Kate said. "If she knew your dad had to leave by a certain time, surely all she had to do was keep you away from the apartment long enough to wait him out?"

The brothers exchanged a knowing look.

Michelle's stomach grumbled and lurched. Why did she get the horrible feeling that the already messed-up Orlov story was about to take a turn for the worse? "There was something else, wasn't there?" she asked. "A reason why that wasn't an option for her."

Kirill provided the explanation. "We don't know for sure, but we think papa had some kind of hold over mama, and that he used that hold to force her to leave me behind."

"He _blackmailed_ her?" Kate asked, rightfully sounding appalled.

"Effectively, yes."

"What in God's name did she do?"

"No idea," William said. "But I think it's also part of the reason why she was so reluctant to talk to me about what happened with dad."

Michelle nodded, thinking about her legal cases, and why some clients had to be persuaded to talk. "Her guilt was getting in the way," she murmured. "She knew that if she hadn't done whatever she did, your father couldn't have forced her to let Kirill go."

"Exactly."

"Jesus Christ," Kate muttered, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "No offense, guys, but your family was _really_ fucked. What you've been through, at least one of you should be a serial killer."

William shook his head. "The two of us talked about that already. We're good."

The mood in the room was turning morose—it was time for some happier and more constructive thoughts.

"I can't say I disagree with Kate," Michelle said, "but the critical word in her sentence is 'was'." She looked from one man to the other. "It took almost thirty years, and I know it hasn't always been the easiest or most peaceful of paths, especially for you, Kirill, but the two of you are finally back together. What's done is done, and can't be undone. Leave the pain and anger of the past in the past where it belongs. Your future together is all that matters now."

She glanced at her sister, trying to let Kate know that when she said 'together', it wasn't just William and Kirill she meant.

Smiling, William leaned in to give her a gentle kiss. As he pulled away, he said, "Have I mentioned recently how much I love you?"

"Jesus, people, get a room," Kate mock-complained, raising a hand to block the 'offending' view.

William responded with a glare. "Right, cus you and Kirill have never _once_ subjected me to the sight or sound of any outrageous displays of affection."

"That was one time," Kirill dismissively said. "And we had the rug professionally cleaned."

Ah, the infamous rug incident, yes. Fortunately, an incident that only her husband had witnessed firsthand.

"Looks like the trunk's running on empty now," Michelle said, gesturing at the leather case. "Is there anything else to come out?"

Kirill shook his head. "That is everything."

Michelle and the boys relaxed in their seats, but Kate pushed away from the couch.

Frowning, Kirill asked, "Where are you going?"

"To fetch the wine," his girlfriend explained. "It's been more than an hour since I opened the bottle. We leave it out to breathe any longer, it's gonna start hyperventilating. And I’m pretty sure we all need a good drink."

She returned once with four stemless glasses, then again with the bottle of wine, setting everything down in a space Kirill had cleared on the table for her. She emptied the bottle into four equal measures, took one of the glasses for herself, then gestured for everyone else to claim their own share.

William briefly swirled his glass, then held it over the coffee table. "What should we drink to?" he asked.

Michelle had the perfect response. "To family," she proposed. "To the Coopers, Orlovs and McNallys, past, present and future." As she spoke, she snuck a glance at Kirill and Kate, relaxing together on the couch, and wondered what their future would bring. Hopefully, something happy and good, and in Kirill's case, some physical and emotional peace.

"To family," the others repeated.

They carefully chimed their glasses together, then each of them took a sip.

Needless to say, the Margaux was _outrageously_ good. Supple and smooth, with a hint of tertiary aromas, and a finish that was as exquisite as the taste. Michelle had tried a lot of wines in her time—most of them earthy, full-bodied reds—but she'd never tried anything as amazing as this. She let out a slightly indecent sound—a cross between a sigh and a moan. "That's like an orgasm in a glass," she whispered, making her younger sister snort.

William raised his brows, obviously not remotely impressed, either with her impassioned response, or with the illustrious wine. "It's very nice, but I'm not sure I'd ever consider it as good as sex."

"That is because _nothing_ is as good as sex," Kirill reminded his twin. He flashed a thoroughly wicked grin. "Although, pulling the trigger on a shoulder-mounted RPG armed with a thermobaric round probably comes a very close second."

Michelle suppressed another, more traditional groan. The bullets and guns were bad enough, now they were talking rocket-launchers as well? What the _hell_ was wrong with these men?

Kate rescued the conversation from an ugly, weapons-themed fate. "Speaking of family," she started, reaching out to cover Kirill's hand with her own. "Kira and I have some interesting news to share."

Everyone froze.

"Jesus Christ," William blurted. "Please tell me you don't have a bun in the oven?"

"What? Oh, God, no, not _that_ ," Kate said, vehemently shaking her head. "Poor choice of words on my part, sorry."

As William relaxed, muttering something under his breath, Michelle asked, "What is it, then?"

The younger couple shared a look, then Kirill nodded very slightly, asking his girlfriend to proceed.

"When we get back to the States, Kira and I are gonna move in together," Kate revealed.

This _definitely_ counted as something good. "You gonna combine into one apartment, let the lease on the other one go?" Michelle asked. That would be the easiest step, although it would also leave one of them with a crappy commute.

"Actually, we have decided to let the lease on _both_ of them go," Kirill revealed. "We are going to rent a house together instead."

"That's fantastic," Michelle gushed, reaching out to give her sister a sideways hug. She pulled away, struck by an alarming thought. "You _do_ realize this means you'll need to tell mom and dad you're dating?"

Kirill brows furrowed in discontent. "We do, yes."

"It shouldn't be _too_ bad," Kate told her other half. "They've already met you a couple of times, so it's not like you're a total stranger."

" _Shouldn't_ ," Michelle stressed. "They might not like that you kept them in the dark for so long, or that you're moving in without getting married." She smiled at Kirill, trying to put him at ease. "They're a little bit old-fashioned that way."

William had some advice of his own. "Don't sweat it too much. However painful you think it'll be, it won't be anywhere _near_ as bad as what Mike and I had to do."

"You mean going to see them at the house to tell them you were having a baby before you were even married?" Kate asked, smirking again.

"And making them cancel the big, expensive, New England wedding," William added. "Think your mom was even more annoyed about that than she was about the bun in the oven."

Michelle sighed. "She _does_ love a good social event." She swatted her sister on the leg. "And I did _not_ have a baby before I was married, thank you very much. We _made_ Andrew before we got hitched, but I'd had a ring on my finger for almost four months by the time he was actually born."

"Can we please stop talking about marriage and babies?" Kirill asked in a plaintive tone. "You are making me extremely nervous."

William had no sympathy for his twin. "Better get used to it, man. Soon as you tell people you're moving in together, it's literally _all_ you're gonna hear. _Especially_ from Andrew and Helen. _You'll_ be trying to figure out how to put your bed together, _she'll_ be trying to figure out how many people she can have at the evening reception."

"Are you _sure_ we have to tell your parents?" Kirill complained to Kate. "Can't you just pretend you have a roommate instead?"

"Not a chance," Kate shot back. "We're gonna have to tell them sometime, and the longer we put it off, the harder it'll eventually be." She flashed her boyfriend a spitefully sassy smile. "You Orlovs might be natural liars, but us McNallys are decent, civilized people."

Kirill huffed and turned to his twin. "Are you just going to sit there and let her say that?" he asked.

"Course I am," William declared. "I'm a Cooper, not an Orlov."

That was too much for Michelle. Laughing, she said, "Your surname might be Cooper, honey, but I'm pretty sure you're just as much of an Orlov as Kirill."

William blushed and shrugged. "Wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if I was."

"As long as you don't come home one day and tell me you're really working for Al-Qaeda," she warned.

"He likes his beer and bacon too much to ever join Al-Qaeda," Kirill said.

"Everything's better with bacon."

Kate frowned. "What, even sex?"

"Why is it whenever the four of us are together, we always end up talking about either sex or guns?" Michelle complained. She wasn't a prude by any means, but there was only so much about her sex life with William she wanted to share. _Or_ about her sister's sex life with Kirill she wanted to know.

"It's all Kir's fault," William said. "He doesn't know shit about anything else."

Kirill demonstrated that one thing he knew was how to flip someone the bird.

"What would you rather discuss?" Kate asked, wisely ignoring William's complaint. "Weddings and babies are apparently a no-no as well, the boys can't tell us much about work, and unless you want to wake up the kids, politics is a bad idea."

Michelle took another sip of her wine, then gestured at the neat piles of mementos sitting on various coffee tables. "Maybe we should talk about what we're going to do with this stuff." She looked at Kirill. "Are you going to pack it all back away, check the trunk in as excess luggage, and hope the airline doesn't lose it on the way home?"

"We could ship it home by FedEx instead," William suggested. "Then it wouldn't impact our luggage allowance."

Kirill shook his head. "I want it to go on the plane with us. It is a direct flight from Geneva to Dulles, so there should be no opportunity for it to go astray during a luggage transfer."

"What if we spread the things out, put a few in each of our cases?" William countered. Before anyone could answer, he waved his own suggestion away. "But that doesn't deal with the trunk itself. Forget what I said."

"It's too big to go as a carry-on, even in the Business Class cabin," Kate warned. "Plus, you'd run the risk of having it searched at the airport. You think it was uncomfortable pulling out a swastika here, try doing it in the screening line in front of a gaggle of Swiss security agents."

"It's not so big it wouldn't fit inside another suitcase," Michelle added. "No guarantees it wouldn't go missing, but that would at least protect it from damage."

Nodding firmly, Kirill said, "I like that idea. There is a nice shopping street a couple of blocks away. We can go there to look for a suitcase tomorrow."

"Plus, if the trunk's locked away in a case, the kids are less likely to see it," William pointed out.

Smiling softly, Kate asked, "You're not gonna let them examine their massive, Russian inheritance, then?"

"Not at the moment," William replied, glancing over to make sure Michelle agreed. "We'll wait until they're a little bit older, a little more able to understand what happened with us and our parents."

"Except for the wooden horse," Kirill said. "Tania can have that when we get home. She does not need to know where it came from."

"You sure?" Michelle asked.

"Absolutely."

William smirked. "If it distracts her from wanting a pet tarantula, I won't say no."

"I still can't believe my older brother is scared of spiders."

"I still can't believe my younger brother had sex on my living room rug."

A smile pulled at Kirill's lips. "Are you jealous, _brat_?"

"It's a prickly rug, so not really, no. Must've left a _hell_ of a burn."

"Then what is the problem?"

"Uh, how about the fact the rug belongs to me and Mike? So it wasn't yours to have sex _on_?"

"It's okay, honey," Michelle soothed. "We'll buy a new rug, do the dirty on it six ways from Sunday, then wrap it up in a big shiny bow and give it to them as a housewarming present."

William had another idea. "Or, we could wait until they have their first weekend away, then go and have sex all over their house."

"Go right ahead," Kirill said. "By the time that happens, Katenka and I will have christened every surface in the building already."

"I don't think I needed to know that."

"You started it."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"How?!"

"You were born first."

William snickered, knocking the air right out of the squabble. "Yeah, I was, wasn't I?" he said.

Michelle gave her husband a wink. "Quietest fourteen minutes of your life, right, hon?"

"Damn straight."

Kirill declined to grace the comment with a response. Instead, he finished what was left of his wine, set his empty glass on the table and started to repack the trunk. As he collected Sophia's bible, Kate looked to William and said, "You still owe us a story."

"The hell are you talking about?"

"Earlier on, when I asked you why your Oma Johanna owned a Hebrew Bible, you said it was a very long story."

William's shoulders slumped. "You want me to tell you the story _now_?" he asked. He looked to Michelle, asking for some spousal support.

Unlike her younger sister and Kirill, Michelle knew some of the story already, so William was probably hoping she didn't want to go through it again. But she'd never heard the story in full, she didn't have to be up at dawn, and she was still in a listening mood.

And more importantly, there was another bottle of wine in the cupboard. Sadly, not another Margaux, but one she would still be happy to drink.

Grinning, she waved at the clock on the wall. "It's not even nine-thirty," she said. "So, why the hell not?"


End file.
